It Could Happen Here - Operation Pridefall, Groomers, and Kink at Pride: Part 2

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

Gare talks about the anti-LGBTQ+ hate campaign "Operation Pridefall" and how it mirrors the current groomer trend and kink at pride discourse.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Welcome back to Get Up and Hear. This is part two of our discussion on Operation Pridefall and the Kink of Pride discourse and the groomer stuff and how they all combine in this really horrifying, really way that I wish they didn't, because it's pretty frustrating. So last episode, I talked towards the end, I talked a decent amount

about tender queers. And I actually would like to define this term here and kind of get into why these people are boosting these specific talking points that just kind of regurgitate old types of homophobic stuff. They claim it doesn't, but it does. You're using the exact same logic. You're just kind of reframing it. So tender queers are this type of like, they're kind of like an in-joke for the queer community

of this personality type. Generally, the tender queers are typically a Gen Z or a millennial queer, more likely to be femme, whether that be a woman, non-binary, or femme person, lesbians, femme bisexuals, pansexuals, or queer soft boys, kind of. They feature this combination of personality, designation, and aesthetic. And they're known for being especially adept at using like watery language of therapy as a means to like get out of most things. Everything's about like holding space and healing and intimacy. And it's like, it's wrapped up in this like jovial, pastel, bubbly package, right? If you throw in some astrology, some corduroy overalls, shaved heads, and round glasses,

and you've got yourself a basic tender queer. And a little quote here from an author named Daisy Jones from an article that they made. Quote, just like the straight soft boy who uses performative sensitivity to get away with being a little shit sometimes, so does the tender queer. Tender queer generally refers to a trope in the queer community of a queer person who presents themselves as being sensitive, hyper vocal of their feelings, sometimes thought of as prioritizing feelings in hyper intentional language over their own harm and privilege. So they kind of use like identity politics to avoid

accountability. There's like this competitive oppression and self-victimization. They center themselves and their feelings in social or political movements that aren't necessarily about them. They kind of, they prioritize ineffective methods of self-care. They utilize gaslighting and dumping the emotional labor of dealing with your own self onto others. Tender queers are known to mask toxicity and manipulativeness in the performative language and aesthetics of social justice. They have this performative, soft hypersensitivity and use identity politics to kind of call out or avoid things that make them uncomfortable and will publicly declare those things as problematic in an attempt to force others to conform with their own will. younger teens who use these talking points against quote-unquote kink at pride as tender queers, because they're people who are really sensitive about what makes them comfortable, and they try to avoid or campaign against anything that makes them uncomfortable. And they use all these performative turns of phrase and talking points to avoid having actual discussions about it.

It's this weaponization of their marginalized identity as a shield to avoid accountability or to deflect against people challenging them for abusive behavior or, in the Pride case, this internalized homophobia. homophobia. There's these little tweet exchange from some people on the super viral Kinkapride post from a month ago. I'm 14 and I don't want to see a half-naked person in leather straps in a gag at an event I take my family to. And someone replied, try glancing at a Mardi Gras or even a public beach before you apply homophobic double standards. And then the poster replied, you think I'm homophobic? I'm literally a trans non-binary lesbian. So again, this is what I mean when I talk about talented queers, right? Someone's calling them out for applying this homophobic double standard on how they view public semi-nudity, right? Not even full nudity, just how they view public semi-nudity, like a bikini or something, right? And then they respond by saying,

I'm literally a trans non-binary lesbian. And then went on to say, also, people at those don't wear kink shit, and it's why I don't go to Mardi Gras or large public beaches. It makes me uncomfortable seeing a bunch of adults in kink shit. And it's why I don't go to Mardi Gras or large public beaches. It makes me uncomfortable. Seeing a bunch of adults in kink shit being sexual just physically makes me ill. People at Mardi Gras and public beaches don't act sexual or wear kink shit. And so like... I feel like you haven't been to Mardi Gras, but that's just outside of the point. You will see way more skin at a public beach.

Most king shit requires covering your body and a lot of extra stuff. Like, if you're wearing a harness or, like, a latex full leather outfit, you're, like, showing way less skin than someone wearing a Speedo or a bikini. So maybe you're just uncomfortable with people expressing their sexuality. Which, in case, don't go to Pride. Cause that's what pride's all about. That's the entire put. But yeah, the whole point, like I'm literally a trans non-binary lesbian.

Like that's like such a perfect encapsulation of what the tender queer kind of trope is. Um, and like not, not, not, not many people like self, self identify as,

as tender queers. It's kind of this joke that the more kind of punky queer community has kind of – it's like we're putting a label on this behavioral trend that we've observed. I'm not if you are soft and emotional, sensitive, cool, whatever. Do whatever you want. I'm fine. Just don't don't use these things as a shield to justify forcing your will onto other people. It's cool to not. It's totally fine to like not like people being publicly affectionate or like doing public. Like it's perfectly fine to be uncomfortable with that.

It's perfectly like that doesn't mean anything bad. It doesn't mean you you're a prude it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you but like there's nothing wrong with people wanting to be public with that at a public event celebrating the fact that it's they are now less oppressed for doing that thing like yeah or a beach or mardi gras and like make sure you're cognizant if you're engaging in any kind of socially normalized ideas of straight stuff is inherently less sexual than gay stuff. I advocate people being able to

get into their own head and figure out why they think certain things. It's this idea of metathought, trying to think about why you think about things. So if you're more uncomfortable with two men kissing than you are with one man and a woman kissing, you should think about that. You should be like, even as a trans non-binary lesbian, if you're more uncomfortable looking at two men kiss, you should think about what social conditioning has caused this to happen. Because that's something that people have been pushing for a long time. Is that, yeah, gay stuff is more adult or more mature than queer stuff.

I think that's a big part of these types of things being at pride. It's pushing back on that idea. pushing back on that idea. So like, I think, and the reason why we see more of these now is like, there are these baby tender queers who grew up in a world where you were less likely to get fucking assaulted for being gay, while also growing up on the internet in the age of Tumblr and Instagram, right? These kids were able to construct their own comfortable, safe, bubbled versions of reality online, only being exposed to what they want, when they want, right? They get to only view things that they find aesthetically pleasing. And the pandemic certainly heightened this, right? With people being forced to solely exist

in their self-catered online worlds. So now with the outside world opening up, some of these soft baby tender queers are going through puberty and are dealing with their quote unquote uncomfy feelings. And the added notion of being exposed to things that you have specifically not sought out, like that causes them to be uncomfortable, right? If you're a femmy person who's just attracted to other femmy people, having to look at dudes be affectionate may not be your cup of tea. having to look at dudes be affectionate may not be your cup of tea, and you may not enjoy it, but it's just as queer as you are, so you can't prioritize your queerness

over somebody else's. It's like there's this collection of baby gays that gets uncomfortable being reminded that people, especially people whom they are not personally attracted to, have sex. It's like if they're reminded that this happens and they don't like it, it feels like they have this sort of anxiety just about looking at something that they perceive as sexual in nature, right? And for them, this includes other, but differently queer people, wearing leather or being semi-nude,

like dudes being shirtless or women being shirtless. For like, I think that's a whole other double standard that should be pushed back upon. But like, again, pride's not any more naked than people at the beach. So it's not actually they're very selective in the types of things that they

will focus on and it plays into this notion that's used by all anti-gay legislation that gayness is inherently more sexual than being straight right? It's more sexual it's more mature, it's more adult because for a long time being gay was exclusively seen as like a hyper sexual deviant act.

And now, especially among Gen Z baby queers, being queer is now less tied to specifically the act of sex. Right. Queerness is much more of an like an overarching personal identity now, especially as it intersects with gender and stuff, right? Whether that be non-binary, other stuff like pansexual, bisexual, what have you. But to kind of circle back to the kink of Pride stuff, people want us dead for being queer. It doesn't fucking matter if someone's parading around in a collar. If you're uncomfortable, you should maybe learn to fight,

actually fight back against people who actually want to kill you. Like, Pride was a riot. You should sort out your uncomfy feelings elsewhere or direct your uncomfy feelings at the people attacking us. So maybe don't prop up kink at Pride discourse when accusations of queer people being all groomers is at an all-time high. And there's fascists organizing to, like, shoot us at pride marches. So maybe consider that before you do discourse on twitter.com. I'm going to do one little quote, and then we will have an ad break. I'm just going to end this section with a quote from them.com again. Quote, kinks, sex, and protest are all inherent

parts of pride. One of the core tenets of pride is liberation and working against cultural shaming. Calling to, quote, not perform your kinks and fetishes at pride because some minors are there and kink can, quote, sexualize the event, unquote, implies that celebrating sexuality and kink is openly bad, and normalizing these things should be a goal of pride. BDSM, subversive sexuality, and leather culture have enjoyed a long history within the LGBTQ rights movement, and such public displays of sexuality are driven by much more than libido or countercultural impulses. They're an inherent expression of queer culture and queer sexuality, and as such, deserve

a place at pride as much as anything else. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian.

Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation.

Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles,

and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. okay and now it's time to actually get into what the title of these episodes is about uh the operation pride fall stuff we're gonna talk about this thing that sucks um so whether

you're looking at the conservative groomer discourse or the tender queer kink at pride discourse you'll see a lot of the same logic as well as a lot of the same photos. We've talked a lot about memes on the show and I'm not going to get into the power of memes very much right now. But suffice to say that a picture can stick in your head a lot easier

than a bunch of words can. And throughout the groomer and Kink It Pride shit, there are a few select photos that people use to demonstrate their opinions on how gay people are a threat to children. Either there's just pictures of adults in kink-associated garb, usually full latex bodysuits or pup masks, or there's these specifically like, there's these two specific pictures of kids

just like standing next to adults who are wearing pup masks that get used a lot. There's also a lot of pictures of like drag queen story time. And whenever I see any of these very specific pictures, I flash back to when I first came across the original Operation Pridefall 4chan thread back in 2020, because these are actually all of the exact same pictures. So Operation Pride Fall was a cyber harassment campaign started on 4chan targeting the degeneracy of the LGBTQ community by attempting to sway public opinion against queer people

by linking being gay to grooming and pedophilia. So checking back in in 2022, oh boy, oh boy, has things happened. So initially organized on 4chan, Discord, and Telegram right before Pride Month, the campaign set out targets and methods to flood the social media platforms of gay venues, pride sponsors, and LGBTQ people or supporters with spam, anti-gay memes, and media, usually photos, intended to imply a link between being openly queer and the grooming of children, and operating online under the banner of Operation Pridefall. The campaign started on May 10th, 2020, when an anonymous 4chan poster posted a thread on poll outlining Operation Pridefall, which was pitching it as a crowdsourced campaign aimed at damaging the LGBTQ community

during the month of June in 2020. The plan centered around, quote-unquote, red-pilling users in the comments sections of companies that support LGBTQ causes on social media. The 4chan post read, quote, Every June, hundreds of massive corporations band together to smother social media in posts in flavor of Pride Month, a code word for the degeneracy that is LGBT activism. Many of these accounts are rather small and get very little engagement, yet they continue to post without backlash. Beginning on June 1st, the goal of Operation Pridefall is to get on Twitter, Instagram, etc., and drop a shit ton of disturbing red pills on homosexuality on the comments of the lesser-known pages. The bigger pages are okay targets, but posts tend to get

unnoticed in the sea of other comments. Commenting on smaller pages, ones with less than 100 likes and so, means anyone who views it will see the posts and companies will reconsider their pro-pride posts afterwards." So, if you scroll through the archived initial

pridefall thread, you'll see a crowdsourced collection of pictures that they intended to flood the internet with, uh, under like in the comment section of posts discussing pride or discussing LGBTQ activism or whatever. Um,

so in this, in this like crowdsourced collection of photos, we see a lot of drag queen storytime stuff, but many of these pictures and memes are now the same ones used both in the recent groomer thing and in the past two years of kink at pride discourse. It's the exact same photos. There's hundreds of them. There's hundreds of photos of people in pup masks, whatever, waving pride flags. There's a lot of them and the specific ones get used

for so much of the groomer shit. And they really started to gain much more visibility during 2020 after the Operation Pridefall thing got launched. The Operation Pridefall 4chan thread also instructed users on how to set up fake phone numbers

to make burner accounts to comment on these social media pages. There's another really interesting part that the Operation Pridefall planning stuff detailed. servers and channels, the users were planning to repurpose cringy TikTok videos while relabeling them with anti-LGBTQ captions and hashtags. Here's a quote from their planning discord. An additional idea, we can red pull zoomers on TikTok and literally build a fucking puppet army to fuck the shit out of millennials. We should expand this operation to as many social media outlets as possible in order to maximize effort. Let's operate like this. On TikTok, convince any Gen Z sibling or relatives to do some kind of shitty jester charade slash whore dance, and then add LGBTQ critical captions on top of it and repost

it under trending hashtags. So you see elements of this exact strategy mirrored one year later in libs of TikTok by getting videos of people being, I don't know, kids and like kind of cringy because kids are kind of cringy, but videos of kids on TikTok and mischaracterizing, you know, TikTok videos and adding LGBTQ talking points on top of them to sway the public opinion of queer people. It's the exact same strategy. A similar idea was also implemented alongside setting up fake dating app profiles to not only spread their anti-gay kind of grooming memes, but also to farm viral content by catfishing gay people and getting them to like be in embarrassing interactions.

Another quote, on Tinder, Bumble and Grindr set up fake profiles with legit convincing images and descriptions that criticized LGBT. So it's this it's trying to catfish queer people and like then I guess spam them with pictures of these like grooming memes and see what their reaction is, then post it, right? It's so the whole Operation Pride and Fall strategy might appear pretty simple, right? It's like basically glorified shit posting, setting up a bunch of fake sock puppet accounts

and demonizing queer people in the comment section of small corporations and influencers. But there definitely is a lot more to it than that, right? There was this element of like planned escalation starting off first as like appearing as reasonable comment that, right? There was this element of planned escalation, starting off first as appearing as reasonable commenters, acting in very good faith, just as somebody concerned by kids being exposed to sexual materials,

whether that be people in drag at a library reading books or people at a pride parade, right? So instead of immediately going on full 100% gay bashing, saying that we should, you know, kill all deviant trans people, which a lot of conservative commentators just say now, like Elijah Schaefer, who just posts memes about wanting to kill trans kids. These bored fascists on 4chan tried to coordinate a slow, more insidious approach, which they would hope would just gradually turn the tide of public opinion against queer people. Here's a snippet from one of the PrideFall organizing chats. Quote, keep it normie, palatable, and friendly.

This means no Nazi or Hitler shit. The goal is to make them question whether what they're supporting is really the right thing. So as Pride Month progressed, the PrideFall participants coordinated on 4chan, Discord, and Telegram to slowly increase the frequency and intensity of the campaign. Another quote from the organizing chat, quote, think about it as waves. Day one is simply questioning homosexuality. And then as the day goes on, it will get worse and worse until the end of Pride Month. So, in terms of physical things they actually had, I believe Operation Pridefall resulted in a few gay events getting shut down. There was, like, this event at, I think it was, like, a queer nightclub in the UK. That got shut down. There was a few other, like, obvious, like, material results

that they had by doing this harassment campaign against venues and corporations. But I think they were more successful in, first of all, spreading specific mimetic images that are now commonly used in the grooming stuff

and in the kink of pride stuff, some of which, these images, were not really used in discourse before, but now are commonplace. I think that that's really where more of this idea succeeded. So over the course of the month, they will want to get more regular people to start associating members of the LGBTQ community with pedophilia. And then in order to do that,

the way they see it is by just gradually shifting this discussion. And then as public opinion alters, they hope that brands will distance themselves from the LGBTQ community and stop doing more pride shit, right? So that was another big part of what their intention was. And they may not have done all that stuff immediately. They may not have done all that stuff immediately like they may not may not have succeeded in that but they definitely did succeed in the prevalence of the images that they were trying to intentionally spread because that absolutely has happened do you know who else loves uh implanting ideas into your brain that's that's that's right the the products and services that sponsor this podcast. Woo-hoo! Go buy their product or get a job at one of the... You know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, here's the ads. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonorum. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning

of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh.

And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba.

Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast

for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. películas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities,

artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries.

Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back. Wasn't it fun reading about Operation Pridefall? Didn't that just bring joy to your ears? I'm so happy.

Me too. It's brought joy to so many parts of me. Yeah. your ears i'm so happy me too joy to so many parts of me yeah so as we mentioned a big part of their attempts to sway public opinion is by spamming photos and memes that attempt to showcase just how dangerous gay people are to children whether that be drag queens doing story time at a library photos of gay people doing quote-unquote kink at pride um you know basically basically they're trying to say how could any reasonable person or corporation support pride?

It's essentially a grooming parade, right? That that's the, that's the thing that they were trying to implant. And one of the things that Operation Pride was successful in was popularizing a few of these kink at pride photos, many of which were then subsequently used last year during kink at pride discourse.

Um, and used this year as well mostly by some some like anti-sex people on the left and some of these young tender queers and you know the same photos are used in grooming

stuff and in Pridefall stuff and Kink at Pride stuff because it's the same big psychology at play right the idea that sexuality in a queer sense is dangerous and way more deviant than sexuality in a heterosexual context, right? Like straight people kissing is rated G, gay people kissing is rated PG or PG-13.

It's that idea, but accelerate it. Another correlation between the openly homophobic groomer talking points and the tender queer stuff is this idea that I'm only comfortable seeing expressions of sexuality that I can relate to or also find attractive. And another interesting thing about a lot of these photos is that a lot of these photos that they use aren't actually photos of pride. is that a lot of these photos that they use aren't actually photos of pride. A lot of the photos that they use are actually from the Folsom Street Fair, which is like a kink festival that takes place in San Francisco every year.

And it is hard to exaggerate how horny the Folsom Street Fair is. So it's very horny. But also, obviously, because gay people have sex, gay people also exist at the fulsome street fair um they may even uh wave a pride flag shocking um so a lot of these photos that that that they use in the grooming stuff and in the kink at pride stuff are actually from the street fair they're not actually photos of pride parades um it's and it's it's and of course anyone who's been to pride would kind of know that because pride is not like the Folsom street fair they are very different events and that's another good indicator of how a lot of these people who prop up this discourse online

have never been to pride either because they're sharing photos at the Folsom street fair and saying it's pride um obviously lots of these nazis on 4chan have never been to Pride either because they're sharing photos at the Folsom Street Fair and saying it's Pride. Obviously, lots of these Nazis on 4chan have never been to the Folsom Street Fair or Pride, but they also share these same photos because, hey, it's people who look gay doing sexual things in public. That means it's at Pride and it's a danger to children,

even though a lot of them are actually at the Folsom Street Fair. So if you're a queer person and you're reposting these Folsom Street Fair pictures and claiming that they're from a Pride parade to bash kink at Pride stuff, reconsider that. Because you're basically just doing the work that neo-Nazis want to do.

You're just doing it on your own time, right? Like, you're repurposing the exact same photos that they were putting out there within this context and just not even knowing where these pictures are from. So, stop. Stop that. Consider not. If you have to, like... If you're going to go to all of this work pride because there's people who act like pretty kinky is not not great because that's not what anything is happening you're none of none none

of that is accurate so that's it's really frustrating to look at to look at all of all of the ways these things these things combine because you Because you get tender queers sharing Folsom Street Fair pictures, you get conservative politicians sharing them, all calling them pride stuff. A lot of the stuff you see there isn't even like, a lot of the pictures don't even have full nudity.

So that's not necessarily like, it's not even super abhorrent, but you're conflating these things in a really disingenuous way. And you're just repeating the exact same things that Nazis have been trying to get you to repeat for years. And you should consider why that happens. So all of the grooming stuff, obviously, has gotten worse in the past few months. Definitely ballooned around the Don't Say Gay bill.

This got tied into a whole bunch of stuff happening in Florida with the Disney Corporation and a lot of the grooming stuff got tied to conservatives attacking Disney now and calling Disney a grooming organization. We've had far-right candidates

show up in front of Disney World to do protests. We've had Nazis show up in front of Disney World to do protests. We've seen a lot of mega people show up at Disney World to do protests.

All against Disney's grooming of children by including anything not straight in any of their materials, which is already like so little um which is also like just extremely funny of like imagining you bring walt disney walt disney what is it come on man like guys we're all on the same side here like yeah and like i don't know like do you I don't know if I really actually think that, like, do all these people actually think that millions of teachers, Democrats, corporate entertainment creators are all complicit in a long-term planning of, like, to sexually groom minors? Some might believe that, right? That kind of overlaps with some QAnon stuff and the paranoia around child trafficking. But I think others understand that they're kind of being hyperbolic and they're being inflammatory to get people angry and to get people very active in their hatred of gay people, right? They need to, old school homophobia kind of became a bad look.

They need to find a new way to rebrand it. And now it's with this groomer stuff and like gay teachers, trans teachers, right? Gender identity stuff, right? A lot of it is now wrapped up in like trans issues. But I want to read this quote by a right-wing writer named Rod Dreher. It was cited in The Atlantic. And I think

it's actually a really good look at how the people who are smart on the right, how that they are intentionally using this grooming label. Quote, about the term groomers, it's usually used to describe pedophiles who are preparing innocent kids for sexual exploitation. I think it is coming to have a somewhat broader meaning. An adult who wants to separate children from a normative sexual and gender identity to inspire confusion in them and to turn them against their parents and all the normative traditions and institutions in society. It may not be specifically to groom them for sexual activity, but it is certainly to groom them to take them on a sexual-slash-gender identity at odds with the norm.

Which really, I think, that quote really showcases what's going on in their brains there. Yeah, and this is something I think, like, Dreher, like, Rob Dreher in particular doing this, I think, is a really bad sign, because there's people who don't know who Rob Dreher is. He's, like, a weirdo Catholic guy. He's been, like, a right-wing, like, Catholic, I think he's a right-wing Catholic columnist

for a long time, and, like, you know, if you go back to, like, 2017, his big thing was this thing called the Benedict Option, which was basically, like, okay, so okay so like secular societies become corrupted uh like christians should just pull out of it right and go live with their own communities that could be sort of like like you know we like we we've we've lost this world we have to like create a new world which we can live around sort of like christian truth or whatever and he he was in this long-running kind of like battle with uh a sort of like i guess like openly phalangist kind of like openly fascist i mean not

quite openly fascist but like people people who are reading uh like what's his name uh people who are reading schmidt and like the nazi lawyers who were like okay well we you know instead of as opposed to this thing of like we're catholics we're going to pull back from the world uh their thing was we're going to use we're going to use like the state to enforce christian doctrine and drear had sort of like fought that and the fact that drear is now just full-on in this grooming shit right that is really bad yep and and looking again and you know if you want to go back in terms of our history right like this is this is the kind of flip that happened that brought the evangelicals into the political

scene right like you have this flip from like people being like well the rapture is coming and sight is impure so we're not going to become be politically engaged to oh hey look we can use the state to just like destroy our political enemies and create the kingdom of heaven on earth and yeah this is this is not good this is yeah but i think specifically that quotes a really good insight yeah the smart conservatives who like know what they're doing like they know it's not actual grooming but it's if they can if they can use that word within the context of being like it's not actual grooming, but it's, if they can, if they can use that word within the context of being like, it's about getting, it's about getting kids to adopt a non-normative sexual identity. Again, it's like non-normative, right? It's confusion in them, turning them against the

institutions in society, right? All of, all of these things that is, that is mirrored across lots of the grooming discourse, the kink of pride discourse, all this kind of these things that is mirrored across lots of the groomer discourse, the kink and pride discourse, all this kind of stuff. It's the same thing. It's like a non-normative sexuality is more sexual than a normative sexuality. It's this whole idea. Man, and it's not great because it's not going to stop with kids either. Because it's not going to stop with kids either. It's not going to – I've talked about this a lot, how once they ban trans healthcare for minors, they're going to bump it up to age 25. Then they're going to bump it up to no one has it at all.

And I got an update on that front. So first of all, for recent legislation, there's the Alabama felony healthcare ban for trans youth, which forcibly detransitions teens across the state. Um, that, that, that, that, that's, that's got enacted. And in Missouri, there's a similar bill in the works, officially titled the Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act. it applies to individuals younger than 18 years old. And it would inhibit Missouri physicians and healthcare providers and prevent them from providing gender-affirming healthcare to patients. And it turns out Missouri lawmakers a few weeks ago were debating the bill seeking to restrict access to gender-affirming care for minors. And they also suggested that access to medical interventions like hormones be withheld from transgender and non-binary individuals until at least their 25th birthday. During public hearing a few weeks ago in Missouri for House Bill 2649, Lori Haynes, a psychologist,

testified that she believes young adults under the age of 25 are unable to fully comprehend the dramatic and drastic and irreparable changes their body will go under if they receive gender-affirming medical treatments like puberty blockers or hormone therapies. Hayes also said that she supported getting

conversion therapy for trans kids. Yeah, I'll bet she thinks that 18-year-olds should be able to buy AR-15s, though. Join the military. Become cops! It's already happening. We already have lawmakers and we have psychologists being brought in to testify

that this is the case. This is going to be the next thing. They want this to happen. I'm just going to say, obviously, a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that receiving gender-affirming care, including purity blockers and hormones between the ages of 13 and 20, is associated with 60% lower odds of moderate or severe depression, and 73% lower are odds of suicidality. Another study

published late last year by the Trevor Project found that among transgender and non-binary minors, hormone therapy was associated with nearly 40% lower odds of recent depression or a suicide attempt over the last year. And a lot of the effects of prurity blockers and even hormonal replacement therapy actually are reversible and are not damaging. So, I mean, but we all know that. There's that horrible Matt Walsh trans documentary coming out soon. Oh, God. Yeah, that, yeah. And I know in the trailer, he says that one of the drugs used to give puberty blockers

to minors is also used as a chemical castration for sexual assault, uh, uh, perpetrators, uh, which is kind of true, but it's castration in the sense that you need to take the drug always for

it to work. It is a, it's a hormone blocker. It stops testosterone from, from being produced. If you go off of it, it's going to happen again. It's not a permanent castration.

It's going to suppress testosterone. You know what? A popular medication for people with heart problems is also a highly explosive compound. Oh no. It turns out things can be used in different ways. Yeah, like 100% of cancer victims are found with dihydrogen monoxide in their system.

But yeah, anyway, we're going to see a lot of lies about HRT coming up soon. This Matt Walsh documentary is going to be stupid. But again, he doesn't understand the science, obviously. He's a propagandist. But the last thing I want to talk about here is what's going to be happening in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. talk about here is what's going to be happening in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. So taking their cue from the... I'm going to quote an article here by Daily Kos. They did a really, really good write-up. David Newart wrote it. David Newart, for the record, like the thing that he has been this beat that we're in,

like writing about these people. David's been doing it for like 30 years. He's amazing. He's incredible. Yeah. So I'm going to quote from him here. This is the last thing we'll close with. Taking a cue from the incoming tide of far-right fear-mongering about grooming and an LGBTQ agenda in schools and libraries,

a group of Idaho biker militiamen are planning to show up to confront people celebrating pride at an event in downtown Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in a public park next month. Two men from the leadership of Panhandle Patriots, a militia-oriented bikers club based in northern Idaho, Justin Allen, the group's vice president, and Jeff White, its sergeant at arms, told a recent gathering at a church hosted by Republican State House member Heather Scott that they planned to have a gun-driven event next month in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, the same day as the city's pride celebration at a park less than a mile away, and they planned a confrontation. I'm going to play a clip of them announcing this. And yeah, give it a listen. These parades are government funded. Many of you aren't aware right now. In Coeur d'Alene, on the 10th of June there is family day and in family day they are promoting family values activities and everything the very following day they are having gay pride day in the very same park the very next day where they will be allowed to parade

through all of Coeur d'Alene, drag queen dancers, education hour, making all this material available for all the kids in a park that is designed for kids. We are having an event the very same day. That very same day, we actually intend to go head-to-head with these people. A line must be drawn in the sand. Good people need to stand up. As she was talking about the repercussions, we say, damn the repercussions. Stand up.

Take it to the head. Go to the fight. If you can, possibly. We know a lot of you are in Bonner. We live in Bonner County. We are fighting in multiple counties. We are asking for all of you to come stand with us. Our event is advertised as Gunda Lane because it's an anniversary of when we stood to protect our community. We are standing again to protect our community. We shifted our date to be available to go head-to-head with these people.

They are trying to take your children. This fight is not just paper. It's not just words. It's not just politicians. They have to see people standing in their face saying no more.

So, wow, that sucked. And is entirely expected. So, wow, that sucked. And is entirely, entirely expected. So the meeting at this church read by a Republican House member was titled, The Game Plan to Remove Inappropriate Materials in Our Schools and Libraries. It was held at a Calvary Chapel in a small town north of Sandpoint, Idaho. Scott has a long history of associations and identifications with the far-right patriot movement, specifically in Idaho. And it was bad. Heather Scott, the Republican statehouse member, about an hour into the night, Scott invited the two militia dudes up to the podium to speak. And they said that. So yeah, it's, uh, in, in a

flyer posted by the panhandle Patriots advertising their planned confrontation at, at, at, at pride, uh, at a flyer that they made shows, shows a drag queen reading at a public library and urges people to join in and standing up against the indoctrination and grooming of our children and if you don't protect children you are part of the problem so yeah they're planning to take a whole bunch of guns the same day as a pride parade and we'll see what happens um i love that that's that we're just gonna see what happens yeah and i genuinely very incredibly deeply hope we're just going to see what happens. Yeah. And I very incredibly deeply hope we're not reporting on the result of that. Yep.

So anyway, before you share King at Pride discourse, think this is what happens. This is what happens when you engage in this type of rhetoric, that queer sexuality is inherently more dangerous to kids. Because, anyway. I'm sad now. Yeah, this isn't really an upper of an episode. You don't say. But it is important to talk about.

So if you're going to Pride this year, please be careful. Because there's a lot of worsening attacks on queer people. Bring an IFAC. You shouldn't have to. You shouldn't have to do this, but this is the world we live in. Bring an IFAC.

Anyway, well, that does it for us today. It could happen here. Hopefully it doesn't happen here, but it could happen here. Hopefully it doesn't happen here. But it could. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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